According to their exhibitor entry on the Computer Trade Show site, they will be launching "a new range Acorns, which will be cutting edge, ultra-reliable and feature rich", powered by AMD and Intel processors.

At the moment, their website doesn't give much away, but discussion on our forums and in csa.misc are suggesting that this isn't the Acorn that we know and love, given that Acorn is still a registered trademark of Element-14 (now owned by Broadcom).

The Icon Bar's hero, Paul Vigay, has said on usenet that he has contacted Companies House to report fraudulent use of the Acorn name, and is asking people to do the same, giving details in his post.

Anyway, while I can hardly approve of the apparent use of a trademark/logo/whatever which belongs to someone else (and in any case, this seems to be in question - hence the use of the word "apparent"); RISC OS continues to have much more serious problems than someone threating something of although historical import, little practical relevance to the present, and a diversion from solving much more immediate problems.

Message #94160, posted by andrew at 15:09, 7/5/2006, in reply to message #94159

Handbag Boi
Posts: 3439

The relevance to RISC OS is that this development symbolises the totally unsatisfactory situation RISC OS is in. As far as I can determine RISC OS Ltd and Castle are still not pooling their resources to enhance RISC OS to the maximum achievable extent as rights to all kinds of things resulting from the Acorn dissolution are all over the place.

This is I would suggest the final warning shot to all those holding the cards to RISC OS that unless they cooperate and coordinate their efforts predators aplenty will be only too happy to snap up the hard work and long-held hopes of thousands of users.

Message #94161, posted by pnaulls at 16:09, 7/5/2006, in reply to message #94160

Member
Posts: 317

And I ask again, what is the relevance? Going on about Castle et al and lack of cooperation has little relevance to this, except via some weak analogy. The question of some company hijacking Acorn's name and logo has, as best I can see, little practical relevance to anything going on right now.

If you want cooperation, which indeed _is_ a real immediate problem, then that needs to start with users, and not just users telling RO companies what to do.

My reaction to the banner on riscos.org is also that it is stating an obvious untruth. The designer must surely be aware of the many Acorn computers that pre-date both RISC OS and ARM. The various incarnations of the BBC Microcomputer were perhaps more famous and successful than any of the latter-day Acorn machines, and what about Acorn's RISCiX workstations?

The statement that "Genuine Acorn Computers run RISC OS natively And are powered by ARM Processors" is therefore simplistic at best.

Message #94165, posted by SimonC at 13:03, 8/5/2006, in reply to message #94164

Right on, Commander!

Posts: 398

I'll make an attempt to make it relevent to the current situation (as opposed to dirty and dishonest, which should therefore still be opposed anyway). If this company is what your average Tom, Dick, or Harry sees, who dimly remembers RISC OS, then they might not unreasonably assume that this is the genuine article, and therefore also assume that Acorn are still around, decided RISC OS has no future, and abandoned it to become yet another box shifter. That would be a damaging impression for RISC OS, if it wasn't for the fact that most of those people probably think it's dead and buried anyway, if they remember it at all.

Message #94166, posted by peter at 14:28, 8/5/2006, in reply to message #94165

Member
Posts: 25

So does anyone here know who they are or what they are selling? as the show is in 2 days is anyone going there to ask?The link on the Comp trade show web site http://www.acorncomputer.co.uk does not work so no details there.

Message #94170, posted by Gulli at 11:38, 9/5/2006, in reply to message #94169

Member
Posts: 138

A bog-standard box shifter won't easily be able to do laptops - you need a few more resources to do that.

Actually that's not necessary unless you intend to build your own boxes. I have a laptop named Vega+ from some Danish box shifter called Vega. If I search for the model number on the box I find at least 5 "manufacturers" of that model, all of which have the exact same specs as my computer and are in fact the same with a different label attached on the back of the screen.

Message #94176, posted by mr-mac at 18:24, 2/6/2006, in reply to message #94175

Member
Posts: 148

Well complained to ASA re the fliers. Got a leter back and they are taking the complaint forward... They are now contacting the company to allow them time to respond. Following that they will adudicate....

Good news though as a lot of complaints don't even get taken forward and investigated (even CustomPC magazine ran the story this month)....